


Bark Less, Wag More

by tansybells



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, Fluff, I Got Called Out For Only Having One Belly Scratch Sorry, Light-Hearted, Minor Spoilers for Marianne, More Fluff Less Drama, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), The Gonerils are Buff and Hairy, The Great Fodlan Bakeoff, There is One Belly Scratch, They're Obviously Werewolves, Transformation, Werewolf Hilda, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:48:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24646690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tansybells/pseuds/tansybells
Summary: When Edelgard ventures forth to investigate the rumors of a great wolf in the woods, what she encounters is the last thing she could have prepared for. After all, who canreallyprepare for the experience that is watching your girlfriend turn into a wolf right before your eyes?Werewolf!Hilda AU, written for The Great Fódlan Bakeoff Challenge.
Relationships: Hilda Valentine Goneril/Edelgard von Hresvelg
Comments: 4
Kudos: 54





	Bark Less, Wag More

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [The Great Fódlan Bakeoff Challenge,](https://twitter.com/TGFodlanBakeoff) which included utilizing five provided themes to write a 1k+ fic within two days! A challenge indeed! 
> 
> Title taken straight from Laleh's song, [_Bark Less, Wag More._](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqLNj_VDwTE)

Perhaps it had been overly ambitious of her, this idea of striking out on her own to investigate the claims that had been circulating the town. Hubert’s time was better spent elsewhere, after all, and when she’d requested Hilda’s assistance, her girlfriend had merely smiled tersely and suggested that she leave it to the authorities.

Edelgard had brushed aside Hilda’s concerns, however, and set off alone through the woods, axe in hand, listening for wolves amidst the noises of the night.

She found her target.

A growl came from behind and Edelgard whipped around to see not one, not two, but five sets of eyes reflecting the moonlight back at her. And as the owners of those eyes stepped out of the curtain of darkness provided by the trees above them, it became very clear that while Edelgard had not managed to find the exact wolf she’d been questing for, some of its brethren had indeed found  _ her _ instead.

Within seconds, she was surrounded by the pack. Edelgard hefted her axe in hand, readying for a fight-- 

But she was interrupted.

A flurry of pink hair cut across Edelgard’s vision, and to her surprise, Hilda stood there before her.

“This is probably the best timing I’ve ever had,” Hilda said, and then, without any warning, she bent over so sharply that Edelgard thought she must have been stabbed in the stomach.

She didn’t have the time to rush in and discover the cause of Hilda’s heart-wrenching position.

An uncomfortable, cracking sound filled the air as Hilda’s body shook and shuddered, contorting with an unspeakable, inhuman lack of precision. Hilda howled in pain, and Edelgard held gloved hands to her mouth in an attempt to stifle the worried cries that threatened to burst out of her. She wanted to reach out and offer aid in that moment, to try and figure out what was causing Hilda such trauma, but a single sharp glare from her girlfriend stilled her.

All she could do was look on in horror as seams ripped, buttons popped, fabric tore to reveal a figure that was no longer Hilda’s. 

The tatters of Hilda’s uniform fell to the ground and in her place, a great wolf of immeasurable size crouched before her, separating— _ protecting _ —her from the beasts that had once seemed so terrifying.

“Hilda?” Edelgard’s voice shook despite years of exacting self-discipline. “Hilda, is—is that  _ you _ ?”

The wolf said nothing, only growled menacingly at the smaller wolves who had begun to try and surround Edelgard before Hilda had appeared. When one tried to take a step closer, thinking it was out of the hers peripheral view, the great wolf turned and snapped at it. Another came from the opposite side, trying to sneak past while she was distracted. It didn’t get far before the wolf turned about face and knocked it aside with a giant, heavy paw.

The smaller wolf flew across the forest floor with the force of impact. It only came to a stop at the bottom of a tree, at which point it staggered to its feet and limped away, tail tucked between its legs.

The wolf growled again, as though it dared its smaller brethren to try again. Wisely, none of them did. Instead, they turned tail and followed their leader back into the depths of the woods.

Satisfied, the wolf lifted its head high into the night sky and howled.

“Hilda?” Edelgard tried again, this time stepping forward with one hand extended. “Hilda, please tell me—what’s going on?”

Its howl interrupted, the wolf turned its great head to face Edelgard. It blinked dark, long-lashed eyes—and then without any warning, tackled Edelgard to the ground and began licking her face enthusiastically.

“Oh my god,” it said in between licks, “I am  _ so  _ glad I got here on time. Are you okay? They didn’t hurt you or anything?” The wolf then stopped any further washing of her face and began nosing about Edelgard’s body without abandon. “I don’t smell them on you. You just smell scared. Holy  _ shit,  _ Edelgard! I didn’t think you’d actually go out and try to hunt down that monster on your own!”

Wiping her face free of drool with her sleeve, Edelgard blinked wordlessly.

It actually  _ was  _ Hilda.

Well, she’d obviously watched the transformation happen, so it  _ had  _ to have been Hilda, but hearing the wolf speak with Hilda’s voice just set everything into place. There just wasn’t any way left for her to convince herself otherwise.

“I’m—I’m alright,” she muttered, still trying to wrap her mind around the situation she’d found herself in. “I… Hilda, is there something you need to tell me?”

Asking Hilda to confess was easier than saying it aloud herself, even if asking Hilda to confess was akin to pulling out her own tooth.

“Oh! Yeah.” Hilda stepped off of Edelgard and sat down. Even sitting, she was so large that she could look Edelgard eye-to-eye once Edelgard managed to stand up.

“I’m a werewolf!”

Hearing it straight from Hilda certainly added a certain… gravity to what she’d just witnessed. It held more weight than simply seeing things for herself, because while there were certainly transformative spells to be found in Fódlan, Hilda wasn’t the sort to lie _.  _ Mislead, manipulate, yes. But rarely did she straight-out  _ lie. _

Without warning, Edelgard felt her knees weaken, her legs give out from beneath her. But before she could fall, possibly injuring herself in the process, Hilda darted forward and propped her up with a stout, fur-covered snout.

“Maybe you should, dunno, sit down,” she suggested even as she slowly lowered Edelgard to the ground. “I mean, not every day you find out something like this, am I right?”

“That would probably be smart,” Edelgard found herself agreeing. “It’s certainly a revelation.”

“Yeah. I know.”

She could hear the smirk in her voice as Hilda circled her, checking her over once more before settling and laying down beside her. To her surprise, Hilda didn’t just lie down, no—she rolled over slightly, allowing Edelgard access to her pale underbelly.

“You can touch if you want,” Hilda said, gesturing with her head towards her stomach. “I’m pretty damn soft, if I say so myself.”

Edelgard reached out hesitantly, but withdrew. It would be impossible to feel the softness of her girlfriend’s fur through the fabric of her gloves. So, with a subtle quickening of her pulse, she took them off and stowed them in the waistband of her skirt.

“Does anyone else know of this?” she asked breathlessly, submerging her now-bare hands in the fur that covered Hilda’s stomach. It was so thick, so soft, so—so comfortable that she wanted nothing more than to bury her face in it and sleep for hours.

“Uh, Marianne does,” Hilda said, her tail generating a steady drumbeat on the ground as Edelgard stroked her belly fur. “She’s got something like this, I guess. It’s not, like,  _ actual  _ werewolfy-ness—”

“Lycanthropy,” Edelgard interjected, correcting her mindlessly.

“—Yeah, that. Anyway, she’s got this  _ curse _ or something, where me and Holst are more like, hereditary? Like, it’s in our blood. But it’s kinda-sorta the same thing, looking at it from an outsider’s point of view. We both still get to deal with the full moon shit and everything else that comes with the position.”

“So Holst is burdened with the same affliction.”

Hilda’s shoulders rippled in a way that Edelgard could only guess was meant to replicate a shrug.

“Yeah. He’s  _ super  _ fucking annoying about it, though. He doesn’t shave or anything—we get  _ so  _ hairy, Edelgard—but  _ he  _ can pull it off.” Hilda snorted in laughter. “Bastard. Then again, pretty much  _ all  _ the dudes are like that.”

Laughter was not meant to come out of a great wolf’s mouth, Edelgard decided, but the sound was so obviously Hilda that she couldn’t help but smile anyway. Yet she didn’t have long to smile before Hilda’s odd laughter faded away into an uncomfortable silence.

“Is… are you actually okay with this?” Hilda mumbled, adjusting her position just enough that Edelgard no longer had access to the long, pale fur that covered her stomach. Edelgard frowned at the question. Her hands were cold without that warmth provided by Hilda’s large body. She knew that Hilda was fond of obscuring her real feelings beneath humor and joviality, so the fact that she’d decided to actually  _ voice  _ her concerns?

It must be a thought that weighed heavily on her mind. So Edelgard remained silent, honoring Hilda’s question with a deep consideration of her own.

Was she okay with this?  _ Was  _ she? Werewolves were rare, yes, but not unheard of. They were powerful forces of nature, legendary in their own right, and they were easily capable of performing acts of strength most would consider otherwise impossible. It would be unwise of her to let such an asset pass her by.

What’s more, Hilda had given her boundless tactical information by revealing her secret to her. Not only did Edelgard now know the truth of the Goneril family’s great strength, but in her candidness, Hilda had also betrayed the von Edmund girl.

But looking beyond all of that, beyond the tactics and the subterfuge and the cold reality of the war she intended to begin, Edelgard had to acknowledge the emotions that Hilda’s trust and presence stirred deep within her heart. She felt loved, she felt adored and appreciated with an earnestness that could only come from an equal—and as it was Hilda who allowed her to feel that way, it was only right and fair that she extend the same opportunity to her.

For she  _ did  _ love Hilda, as much as she could love another person while knowing that she couldn’t put them above her country and people. There was so much that she would want to do for her,  _ with  _ her, if not for the responsibilities that rested heavily on her shoulders. The resulting distance would be unavoidable, painful, even.

But here, in this moment, perhaps she could allow herself to prioritize Hilda. She could put off facing the consequences of her feelings until the time came that she could no longer ignore them.

“Edelgard?” Hilda’s voice, quiet and barely trembling, broke through Edelgard’s contemplation with all the strength of a hidden blade. “You’re being really quiet…”

Edelgard sighed, tucking her hair behind her ear as she pieced together the best way to reply. It may not have truly mattered, given Hilda’s intuitive understanding of her words and actions, but it was important to Edelgard herself that she put the effort in. It was how she could show that she did care.

“It’s alright with me,” she finally said, shifting so that she could place her hand on the top of Hilda’s furred head. Leaning in, she kissed the side of Hilda’s snout. The short fur was rough against her lips, ticklish almost, but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Like kissing the head of a little puppy. A puppy that could easily knock her over and consume her, yes, but a puppy nonetheless.

“It’s intimidating to know the source of your strength, yes,” she continued as she stroked Hilda’s head, “but it is part of who you are, Hilda. To deny your heritage is to deny an integral part of the girl I am so fond of.”

Hilda was silent for a moment.

Then, without any warning whatsoever, a giant paw shot out and pushed Edelgard onto the ground. She had no time to react before Hilda pulled her in close, burying her in the creamy fur at her chest, and ruffled her hair with her nose. Edelgard wrinkled her nose at the unexpected warmth, but let herself relax against Hilda’s body.

“I am  _ soooooo  _ happy that you think that,” Hilda said, and if Edelgard was correct, there was a bit of a tremble in Hilda’s otherwise cheerful voice. She’d been aware that this was an extremely sensitive topic for Hilda, but that tremble really made it clear how important her approval was in that moment. “Like, I was all ready to make a run for it if you decided you weren’t chill with—um, with all this.”

“But what would you do about all the clothes you’d have to leave behind?” Edelgard teased, pulling her face just far enough away from Hilda that she didn’t have to worry about fur getting in her mouth as she spoke. “Not to mention the  _ several  _ disapproving letters from your brother that would eventually catch up with you?”

Hilda groaned.

“I didn’t  _ think  _ that far, Edelgard! I was a little more worried about my girlfriend waltzing on home with a new wolf-skin coat!”

“That  _ would  _ look quite dashing.”

“Fuck, it  _ would _ ,” Hilda agreed. “Just promise you don’t try it out with my hide, yeah? Or  _ you’ll  _ have to deal with Holst, and I don’t think he’d let it go with just a few wimpy letters.”

“I think I could manage him,” Edelgard mused.

Hilda laughed, and Edelgard smiled with a heavy blink. Wrapped in the warmth of Hilda’s awkward, canine embrace as she was, she was becoming more and more mindful of the fact that the night’s full moon was still high in the sky above them.

“How long do you have until you change back?” Edelgard asked. “And—I saw that your clothes ripped when you transformed. Do I need to fetch some for you?”

Hilda lifted the foreleg that pinned Edelgard down, allowing Edelgard to roll out from within her grasp and sit up beside her.

“It’s not gonna be until the sun comes up,” she said, “so we’ve got some time to chill. And nah, I don’t need you to get me anything. I put a new uniform out here every month. Usually the week before the full moon? Sometimes I push it a little close, but—yeah, we’re all good this time.”

“Alright.” Edelgard moved so that she could prop her back up against Hilda’s side, and pulled her knees up to her chest, hugging them close. “Would you mind if I stayed with you until dawn, then?”

“I think I’d like that.”

Edelgard smiled, glad that she’d received Hilda’s permission, and stroked the paw beside her. She’d always known Hilda was strong, but it was another thing entirely to see the muscles rippling beneath her fur, the claws that she could splay out so widely between her own fingers.

“Besides, I’m sure that between the two of us, we can come up with an adequate excuse for our absence in class tomorrow,” she said with a laugh.

And while she might have been content to leave her trail of questions to die off there, she found that she simply couldn’t. One last question that had been stuck at the back of her mind, bothering her ever since Hilda had appeared, had yet to be asked.

“How did you know I was in trouble?” she asked, looking at Hilda’s face with a curious tilt of her head. “You showed up just in time, after all.”

If Hilda could blush, Edelgard had the feeling that she would be in that moment. But as she couldn’t, Hilda just covered her eyes with a massive paw and mumbled something.

“...-lowed you.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I… kinda followed you,” Hilda grumbled from beneath her paw. “You said you were going out to hunt for that giant wolf—which is obviously me, by the way, don’t know if you picked up on that—and I knew I was gonna shift tonight, so I just… wanted to make sure you didn’t get in any trouble. I was gonna stay out of your way, but then you started smelling like fear, and I got just a teeny bit worried.”

“You know what I smell like?” Edelgard raised a brow.

“Yeah. Um, I can’t really describe it, but don’t worry! You smell nice. I mean, I know what  _ everyone  _ smells like. But if you listen to Holst, he likes to think it’s a dumbass instinctual thing when, uh, this happens.”

“Instinctual?”

Hilda groaned, and Edelgard smiled. She had an inkling of what Holst might be referring to, but at the same time, it was entertaining to weasel the information out of Hilda. Particularly when she was being so reluctant about the matter.

“It just means that I really like you,” Hilda finally, reluctantly said. “Not like that’s news to you though, right? But it’s some weird brain thing that happens. I like you, so I pay more attention to you.”

“That’s normal, though.” Edelgard leaned her head against Hilda’s side. “I pay extra attention to you, too.”

Hilda’s ears pricked up, and her tail began to move once more.

“Aww, you  _ like  _ me,” she crooned, and Edelgard had to push down the childish desire to stick her tongue out at Hilda.

“Of course I do. I don’t think we’d be here together if I didn’t.”

Apparently satisfied with her answer, Hilda rolled over onto her side and stared intensely at Edelgard.

“If you like me, then you should scratch my belly. No one  _ ever  _ scratches my belly!”

Fondness strengthening the curve of her smile, Edelgard graciously acquiesced and set about her duty. She had the feeling that she’d be doing this for the rest of the night, but if it was something she could do to help Hilda during what must undoubtedly be a stressful time, then she would do it gladly.

**Author's Note:**

> My biggest thanks to the beautiful [Fox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxVII/pseuds/FoxVII) for her hasty beta work in the few hours before this was due. 
> 
> I don't think this is one of my favorite things to have written, though I guess it was a good exercise in trying to both write quickly and tell a decent story. And an excuse to write a werewolf transformation. I liked doing that.
> 
> I'd love to hear your thoughts, though. Concrit is always good. 
> 
> I can be found on both my [tumblr](https://www.tansybells.tumblr.com) and my [twitter.](https://www.twitter.com/tansybells) Comments and kudos are always appreciated. Thank you for your time! ❤


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